RC:

A night at 30-32F with a dip to 29F is not really a bad freeze. I don't think your fruit will suffer much, if at all. The sprays of water might not have been necessary, but the trees may have enjoyed the bath.

Most of my trees, both stone and pome fruits, have taken down to 27F with not much real damage. Below that, it's a different story, especially when the low lasts for several hours and winds are calm.

Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

My 'cots took 27F this year and I now see many fruitlets forming, indicating there was little damage. 29F? Downright balmy!

Scott

rc:

By now you can tell. Are the fruits looking discolored? If so they are toast. I would say you are very close to bad losses. Just depends on how far along your fruit is at this time. We got to ~31 last night with no damage. That extra 2F lower in your case is a lot.

I lived in your area for 30 yrs. You will be an expert on freeze damage if you stay there much longer. I'm about to decide it's not much better down here around Alpine.

Hope you made it thru!!!

The Fruitnut

Thanks for the encouragement and info.

And, I remember you had mentioned you used to be up here Fruitnut. Like you say, weather swings are pretty much a fact of life up here. I've got pictures from last year where all the flowers and fruit blooms have three inches of snow on them.

I really thought we might get an "average" spring for a change this year. Our average last freeze date is April 15, but that is just because half the time the last freeze is in March and half the time its in May. Ah, the good ol panhandle. ;)

If you want to see our biggest weather problem at the moment, check out these pics I took of what Lake Meredith looks like right now.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lake Meredith at all time low last weekend

Maybe with a little luck it will just help me with my fruit thinning and leave me a fair crop.

rc:

Most of the damaging freezes in Amarillo come from about March 10 to April 20. There was seldom damage until the apricots reached full bloom about March 10. Past April 20 it usually didn't get cold enough to hurt things. There were 3-4 yrs out of 30 with losses after April 20. Only one yr did I see damage in mid winter that was with a -11F in Febr got all the apricots. Never can remember damage in late Febr or early March during bud swell even thou sometimes it got near zero.

The other big losses are wind and esp hail. Hail, lots of hail. Really had some ugly damage a couple yrs on full size apples.

So do your fruit look discolored this morning?

The Fruitnut

I was running my sprinklers this morning when I left. I'll let you know after lunch.

funny you should mention hail, as dry as we have been, we have already had one hail that covered the ground. You know Amarillo all too well. Fortunately, that one was very small hail.

All in all, with our weather here its good I am not in fruit for a living

I've found the MSU table to be generally accurate for me. If anything I do a bit better than their numbers. Of course they don't take into account length of freeze period and wind speed which is also important. By them, 28F and above is at worst only minor losses on any fruit and stage.

Scott

Here is a link that might be useful: MSU table

The plums seem to be shedding some this afternoon, but, they were ridiculously loaded and so that may well have happened with or without the freeze. It was kind of hard to tell on the pears. Some of them seemed a little blotchey. I guess I'll know more in a couple of days on them.

Good info Scott. And thanks for information, encouragement, and giving me a place to vent a little worry.